


Hold My Life (Because I just might lose it)

by gloss



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Creepy Hawkins Shit, Friendship, Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, video store
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: February, 1986: The guys claim it's a half-day at school, Robin and Steve are working at the video store, and now reality seems to be decohering and having tracking issues.
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington & The Party (Stranger Things)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Hold My Life (Because I just might lose it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FrenchRoast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchRoast/gifts).



> [title source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxiOzhSEvkE) ♥ Mats

"You're stuck," his mom tells Steve when he's not even awake yet. He's only had two bowls of Honey Smacks, first of all, and his hair's still wet and untouched by product. "You're spinning your wheels and not moving forward."

So that's a great way to start yet another workday. End of January, start of February, which means it's frigid but bright out, the snow left on the ground has frozen over into a gross crust, and he's just trying to keep his eyes open.

Somehow the troop of mini-dorks, however, snuck past him. He manages to surprise Dustin at the far end of the New Releases display, boxing him in between the front of the store and Family Faves.

"The hell are you doing here, Henderson?"

Dustin gives him a wiseacre smirk. "Uh, browsing for the very latest in new releases for my home video entertainment. You?"

Steve's been worrying, off and on for a while now, about the kids and concussions. All this monster-slaying can't be good for their, like, growing bodies. Maturing systems. 

When he answers, Steve speaks slowly and clearly, using the voice he uses for visiting Nanna and Peepums at the home. "I work here, Dustin, remember?"

Snickering, Dustin pokes his finger at Steve's nametag. "Hence the ugly-butt shirt!"

Kelly green and burnt orange _can_ go together, Steve is sure. It just takes the right person to wear it.

Robin. Robin's the right person to make the combination work.

"Whatever, squirt. Answer the question."

"What question?"

"Dustin. Small loud nerd. Buddy. Friend in the loosest possible sense--" Steve tries to frown when Dustin beams at that, but it's hard. The kid really does have a smile like sunshine. "The hell are you doing in my commercial establishment at--" He checks his watch. "1:12 on a weekday?"

Dustin's grin returns. "Oh! Half day!"

"Bullshit."

"Ask anyone, totally for real." Dustin turns over the box for _The Fabulous Fleischer Folio_. "When's Star Wars coming out?"

"C'mon, man, you know this." Steve points at the huge posters over at the snacks and candy display. He's dreading the end of the month, when the movies get rereleased on VHS. Maybe he should take vacation days around then. "Read that last line for me."

Dustin heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Fine, I guess I can wait."

Steve shoves his shoulder. "You already know them all by heart!"

Lucas pops up from way back in the Frights & Horrors section which is, Steve has told Keith this a thousand times if he's told him once, way too close to the porn. "He barely knows Ep Four, though. He's mutilated the conversation at the cell block a gazillion times."

"Shut up, Lucas! I did not!"

And, of course, there's Mike Wheeler at the Olde-Tyme Classics, giggling. "Dustin just didn't want to be Leia so he muffed it up on purpose."

"I'm always Chewie, guys! This is just the law of the land!" Dustin slams the box back down on the shelf and looks at the floor, drawing several deep breaths. His face is getting red.

"You guys can hang here," Steve says, putting on a loud and authoritative (but still relatable and cool) tone, "but you need to not, like, kill each other and-or the other customers, okay? And also keep it down?"

"I can do that," Dustin mutters, glaring at Lucas. "Wouldn't trust them, though."

"Aw," Steve says, "Sinclair's all right. He's no Erica, but who is?"

"Eww," Mike and Dustin say together, but Lucas just shrugs.

"Where's your better half, anyway?" Steve asks. "You know, red hair, shreds, way cooler than all three of you put together?"

"They broke up," Dustin says under his breath. "Again. I _told_ you this."

"Oh, shit, sorry. Guess when it comes to skate or die, you die?" Steve laughs at his own excellent joke, but no one else does. "Somebody got thrashed, and it's Lucas's heart?"

"Weirdo." Lucas doesn't look away from the oversized boxes for Hammer House of Horror. "You really need friends your own age."

"That is so unfair," Steve replies. "I have a number of friends in my age range."

"Yeah, an _imaginary_ number," Mike says, so Steve flips him off on his way back to the counter. He gives Dustin a supportive trip-and-jostle as he passes. He totally plays favorites; he's very comfortable with that fact.

He's gotten them fairly settled by putting _Time Bandits_ on the system screens and letting them share a giant box of Sno-Caps. Wheeler fake-puked at the offer, but Dustin and Lucas happily accepted, and now Wheeler's been complaining about them not sharing.

"You _sure_ it's a half-day?" Steve can't help but ask a couple times. He doesn't want to push; the guys have had a rough couple weeks since the Challenger exploded. On the other hand, he's supposed to be the responsible one, and going to school is pretty damn responsible. Or so he's gathered.

When Robin clocks in, she just arches an eyebrow at the kids, then gives Steve a Significant Look. He shrugs and mouths that he'll explain later.

"I don't care, you know," she says when she slides in behind the counter. "Your strange attempts at a social life are none of my concern."

"I didn't invite them!"

She rolls her eyes. "Sure, whatever you say."

Everything's relatively quiet for an hour or so. The guys finish their movie and make him put on _Night Shift_ next. He talked them down to _Night Shift_ , to be clear; Lucas and Mike opened negotiations by requesting _Faces of Death_ , while Dustin advocated for _Porky's_.

They're only about ten minutes in when the tornado siren goes off outside.

Robin grabs Mike by the collar as he dashes for the door while Steve throws out his arm to block Lucas. They're shouting in protest--"just want to see! Let me go!"--as they're dragged back.

"Don't be stupid," Steve shouts over their complaints. "Tornado siren's no joke, dipshits. We're staying here."

"Technically, it's an air raid siren," Lucas says.

"Technically, you're pissing me off," Steve says, "but let's move on."

"He's right, though," Dustin says, _like a traitor_. Steve glowers at him but Dustin shrugs. "It was originally an air raid siren that got repurposed after the war for broader public safety needs."

"Who'd air raid Hawkins?" Steve asks. "Ridiculous."

"You _just_ survived a Soviet invasion and you're asking that question?" Mike gapes at him. "How dumb _are_ you?" 

Steve gives him his best Clint Eastwood narrow-eyed look. "So sorry. Who'd air raid Hawkins _back then_? Is that better, Mr. Historian?" 

"I would," Robin says, her mouth full of popcorn. "What? If I had a good setup, like a sweet little cropduster? I'd totally....Blam! Blam! Spoooooosh." When no one reacts, she digs out another handful and shoves it in her mouth. "Forget it."

"We're staying here," Steve says again and waves off the new chorus of disagreement. "We'll hunker down and, I dunno, pass the time. Play your snakes and ladders thing."

"Our what?"

"You know. Snakes and ladders. With the gremlins and geeks?"

"Dungeons and Dragons."

"Yeah, same diff. Point is--"

"It's _not_ the same--" Dustin says at the same time that Lucas says, "We don't play that any more."

"What? Why not?" Steve asks.

Mike's mouth twists. "Will still wanted to play."

"But _we_ didn't," Lucas says, almost like a warning.

Steve looks at the kids, then at Robin, who's also frowning. "What? Why not? That's so shitty!"

"You're shitty," Lucas says and Mike high-fives him.

"Hey, hey," Steve says and leans back. "Let's not get personal, okay?"

"Guys," Dustin says, craning to look around Robin, who has her hand twisted in the back of his sweater to keep him in place, "I don't think that's a tornado."

"Yeah, it's an air raid, whatever," Steve replies.

It's not an air raid. It's a stripe of light and static stretched across reality, moving down the street, chewing up whatever it passes. It's like nothing they've ever seen. It's wide as Main Street and moving slowly, surely, through their world.

"We can take it down," Lucas says, which is admirable and all, but also total bullshit.

Dustin shakes his head. "Without El, though, we're basically totally and completely screwed."

"Dude," Lucas says, again with that warning tone. He glances at Mike, then widens his eyes at Dustin. Mike just looks like he's deflating a little.

"I can say her name! It's an emergency! It's an emergency and we're screwed."

Lucas claps his hands. "No, we're not. We can...like..."

Dustin crosses his arms. "Screwed. I'm calling it."

"Listen, before you make out your will--" Steve starts.

Dustin snorts impatiently. "Already done. Suzie gets most of it, of course. Books, computer, audio equipment."

"What about me?" Steve's throat is dry.

Dustin looks confused. "Do you _want_ my stuff?"

"I'd like to be thought of, yeah!" Steve says. "I don't think that's too much to ask!"

Dustin squeezes his elbow. "Done. Anything you want. Sorry."

"Thank you," Steve mutters. "Apology accepted."

"So touching. Heartwarming." Mike sounds like he wants to puke. "Can we deal with this now?"

"I'm hiding," Robin announces from the floor. "I don't know what you fools think you're accomplishing out there."

"One vote for hiding." Steve holds up a finger. "Anyone else? I like the sound of it myself."

"Fight it," Lucas says. "We have to fight it."

" _How_?" Mike demands and Dustin echoes him, just as vehemently.

"I don't know! With our wits?"

"Then we are screwed," Robin says with her mouth full. When they all turn on her, she holds up a Pounder bag of peanut M&M's. "Anyone?"

"It's turning back," Dustin tells them as they huddle behind the counter. "Jittering all over, it's really...what the _hell_?"

"Is it a Gorgon?" Steve asks. "Devil dog?"

"Demo--. Never mind. No, it's more...Mike, get up here."

"Why?"

"Because I said so, Wheeler." Dustin reaches down and yanks Mike to his feet. "What's that look like to you?"

Robin whispers, "Now I want Devil Dogs."

"Me, too," Steve confides. "Damn my encyclopedic knowledge of readymade snack foods."

"Shut _up_ ," Lucas hisses. "I'm trying to hear."

Above them, Mike and Dustin are conferring hurriedly. 

"Just stand up, man," Steve tells him. "You don't need their invitation."

"Yeah," Robin puts in. "You do your thing, Lucas."

He squares his scrawny shoulders and nods, like he needs to remind himself of something. "Right. Totally."

These kids and their interpersonal rifts and conflicts and soap-opera-level drama. Steve finds it all as exhausting as it is fascinating: who knew junior-high dweebs had so many feelings?

"It's out of phase," Mike's saying now and Dustin's replying something about "frequency modulation" and "horizontal blanking interval".

"You want to explain what's happening to normal people?" Steve stabs his finger into Dustin's denim-clad calf. "Non-neo-maxi-zoomdweebies, that is?"

"Normal people?" Robin looks around wildly, then buries her face against Steve's shoulder. "Where? Hide! More!"

As quietly as he can, Steve asks into her hair, "Are you high?"

Her shoulders lift and fall, like she's either weeping or holding back laughter. "I'm really scared," she whispers. "This is how I deal."

"I'm going to put my arm around you," he whispers back. "Okay?"

"Argh," she says, but burrows closer. "Fine. Get your jollies."

"Yeah, it's all about me," he replies, "of course."

He doesn't ever want to get used to being friends with a girl like this. He doesn't want to take this for granted, what Robin feels like (strong but small) and how she _trusts_ him not to be an asshole and somehow he still hasn't let her down.

"Harrington!" Mike says above the roar. "How many rewinders you got?"

"How many _what_?" Did he get hit on the head, too? Steve has less than no idea what he's talking about.

Robin straightens up on her knees. "Six in the back, why?"

"Get them!" For a tiny guy, he's got some vocal chops, that's for sure. 

Without thinking, Robin and Steve throw themselves toward the back office and grab the heavy black machines, each the size of a shoebox. All they do is rewind the tapes; two out of three returns haven't bothered to rewind, and there's some kind of reward if you rent a new movie and it's not perfectly rewound. Steve always pretends not to have heard of that rule when customers try to claim it, because it's a pain in the ass and why should _they_ be rewarded for someone else's negligence?

"Here!" Robin shouts, stumbling back into the store proper, rewinders spilling from her arms. "Where do you want them?"

"Line them up," Lucas says, pointing to the area they've cleared right by the door. Dustin comes over to help her.

Steve leaves his machines for them and goes back to the office to find extension cords. Fat lot of good this plan will be without juice.

He has to go through Keith's desk to get the cords, which should earn him _at least_ an Iron Cross, or whatever hero medal there is just below a Purple Heart. Finally, in the way back of the last file drawer, he unearths a tangle of yellow and black cords and rushes back to the kids, holding out the bundle like it's on fire or about to explode.

"Cords!" He stops short when he sees that the rewinders are arrayed in a shallow semi-circle, hinge tops open like mouths, facing the open door. They are also all plugged in, so now he looks like an asshole and an idiot with cords trailing behind him and twining around his legs.

The static is so close now. It fills up the parking lot, stretches and deforms everything it passes. The glowing, irregular bars never settle but keep jumping. The noise of it, half-magnetic, half-impotent screeching, fills Steve's skull from the inside. 

"Steve! Get down!" Dustin stage-whispers. They're all huddled behind the counter and Dustin's motioning him down. Lucas has his slingshot in his hands, but what's that going to do against the monster?

"Cords!" He's stuck in the horizontal jitter, repeating himself, stuttering and shaking side to side. He sees the store from inside--Robin shouting, Lucas aiming the slingshot, Dustin waving his arms wildly--but he can't do anything. He tastes burned plastic. His body jumps, pinches, skitters.

Mike and Robin's mouths, open, black and red.

Lucas's eye, squinting.

Dustin. Where's Dustin?

Something barrels into Steve, knocks him _through_ the horizontal stretch at the same time that the monster glows, roars, then dwindles to a single point and flicks off.

"C-c-cords," he keeps saying as he finds himself on his side, arms trapped in the cords, Dustin kneeling over him yelling. "Hey, Dustin. Where'd you come from?"

"Did you _see_ that?" Lucas is shouting as he jumps up and down, arms reaching for the sky. What is this, a Toyota commercial? 

"Oh, what a feeling," Steve mutters, then cracks up. Dustin's still yelling at him. Now Robin's crouching next to him, yelling, too. "Hey, Buckley. What a feeling!"

"Think he's infected?" Robin asks Dustin.

Dustin shakes his head. "I think he's just stupid."

"Hey," Steve says without very much heat. "That's so mean. Really hurtful."

It takes a lot of effort, but he pushes himself up on to an elbow so he can look around. The front of the store is trashed, which sucks, because who's going to clean it up? Not Keith, that's for sure. On the other hand, Robin and Dustin are hugging him, which is really nice.

Mike and Lucas peer out the door, then proceed cautiously into the parking lot.

"They should stay here," Steve tells Robin. "How come no one ever listens to me?"

"Because," she says, then pauses to give him another hug, "you're an idiot."

"Oh," he replies. "Okay, fair."

"They'll be okay," she adds. "Don't worry so much."

"If I don't, who would?"

She just shakes her head at that, so maybe he should be quiet. 

He's not ever going to understand, not at any real fundamental level, what happened and how the guys defeated whatever that was. He listens to their explanations _a lot_ over the next several hours--when Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Sinclair rush over to pick up their sons, when Dustin calls Will on the office phone to share the news, when Robin asks a couple times for clarification--but Steve cannot honestly say he understands. There was a decoherence in something, an unaligned magnetic blip that threw off something else, or maybe the same something, and horizontal interval going quantum?

"Creepy Hawkins shit," Robin says and pats the back of his hand. They're sitting in her car late that night in front of his house. It's cold, but the heater's on and the windows are all foggy from their breath. "Creepy Hawkins shit that mutates. Luckily we're here to adjust the tracking."

"Yeah, true," he replies. "You're right."

She gives him a big, toothy grin worthy of Dustin. "Always am."

"Never doubted it," he says and pushes open his door, swings out his legs. "Get some sleep, Buckley."

"See you in my dreams," she says throatily, pure Eartha Kitt, as he laughs and slams shut the passenger door. 

Her Datsun hatchback put-puts away and he's still standing there, wringing warmth into his hands, thinking about how they almost died. Again.

But they didn't, that's what he's thinking about. Again, still. They're here.


End file.
